Germans in Nigeria during the First World War: From Traders to Enemy Subjects

Abstract Drawing on extensive archival research in Berlin and Ibadan, this article makes an original contribution to the growing body of research that acknowledges the global features of the First World War. The article explores this wider subject by examining the wartime position and treatment of German civilians in Nigeria. In recent decades, there has been growing interest in wartime measures against enemy subjects, but developments in West Africa have attracted little scholarly attention thus far. The article begins by analysing German activities in the region before 1914, highlighting the prominent role of German merchants in the regional economy. It then traces various measures that the British colonial authorities adopted upon the outbreak of the war, as well as noting concerns about the role of German propaganda in provoking social and political unrest in Nigeria. The article covers the initial wartime restrictions on German companies as well as the internment and subsequent removal of German subjects from British West Africa.